Bringing His ‘A’ Game: Local Comic Sean Dillingham set to appear on ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’

Cast as mob boss Marco Severino on the Tuesday, December 6, episode of Fox’s “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” Dillingham says he returned to Scottsdale a different actor.

“It’s like going from throwing a baseball in your backyard, to playing in Yankee Stadium,” he says. “You’re like, ‘What the hell? How did I get there?’”

The crew and cast of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” including Andy Samberg and Andre Braugher, eased Dillingham into his role. The first day, he took “surveillance photos” for the “police investigation” on the New York backlot.

“For the first scene, I didn’t have any lines,” he says. “I was in the interrogation table refusing to talk. Had I dived in right away on day one, it would have been intimidating to be in a giant studio like that with all these stars around me.”

Braugher, who plays Capt. Ray Holt, put Dillingham’s nerves at rest.

“He said, ‘Listen, drop that star-struck stuff. We’re all actors. We’re going to do our thing and it’s going to come out fantastic.’

“He was really a rock. After that, I said, OK, let’s do it. On day one, I was waiting to shoot my scenes. I was meandering around their ‘briefing room’ and I was looking at the bulletin board flow chart for the mob. There’s my mugshot at the top. Apparently, that whole episode is going to be about my character.”

Dillingham has been involved in comedy for years and is the owner of the Comedy Spot Comedy Club in Scottsdale, where he teaches improv. (For more information, visit thecomedyspot.net.) He studied with Second City and the Groundlings.

“Having a peek behind the curtain, having the opportunity to be at Yankee Stadium, having a moment to be in the big leagues, now I know what they’re looking for,” he says about his experience on “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

“I will guide people now in the right direction at my improv classes. I’m even more professional. I can bring my ‘A’ game.”